Press Release

Jesus Benavente

Ecce Hombre

Chapter 1: Why I Find Miraculous Beauty From Being Cut Down 

19.09- 11.10.2015

 

 

Reception Rome opens its doors in the Prati district with its inaugural multi-part exhibition Ecce Hombre by Jesus Benavente.

 

Primarily a performance artist, Benavente also creates installations and objects from humble, everyday materials, often transforming hardware-store detritus into sites of meaning. His practice navigates themes of faith, police authoritarianism, national identity, and the complexities of work and value. Born in San Antonio, Texas to immigrant Mexican parents, Benavente often draws parallels between artistic production and systems of labor, while using humor as a tool to confront difficult subject matter. At the same time, his work grapples with futility—taking an affirmative stance against the futility of art-making itself, and treating failure as both inevitable and impossible.

 

For Chapter 1 of Ecce Hombre: Why I Find Miraculous Beauty From Being Cut Down the artist presents a mural from his Miraculous Muralismo series—made with a weed whacker and cut flowers—and an installation of rose-stamped cinder blocks that playfully nod to Donald Judd’s iconic forms and the mexican catholic miraculous art historical painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a collaboration between an indigenous man and the virgin mary. Together, the works occupy a space between reverence and satire, beauty and toil.

 

Reception Rome is dedicated to presenting experimental, process-based, and critically engaged practices. We are proud to launch with this powerful first chapter of Benavente’s multi-part exhibition.